Day 31: Denver, Pt 2
Welcome
Yesterday we returned for night two at the Mission Ballroom.
It was our second day in the Mile High City, this elevated metropolis with a nickname that wipes the smugness from the face of the metric system. At 5,280 feet above sea level, we were still able to breathe but we were careful not to overexert ourselves as we made our way from our hotel rooms and out to the van yesterday morning. It was 10.30am when we got on the road, heading to a radio session, but thankfully with scheduled stop on the way for breakfast. Kaylene provided the recommendation, a spot in South Denver called Tokyo Premium Bakery, and we knew it had to be good because there was a line out the door when we arrived. The menu was large and enticing but I managed to restrict myself to only two items, a beef curry bread, and a cherry Danish, which you can see beautifully photographed by Jonathan Pearce on the iPhone 14 Pro Max.
The Bridges Broadcast Centre, home of Colorado Public Radio.
We arrived at the Bridges Broadcast Centre feeling satisfied and ready to have a shot at this acoustic session, easily the most challenging format for a rock band to perform in. While some might see the fact that we had forgotten to bring our instruments and they were now locked inside the Mission Ballroom as unprofessional and clumsy, we are blessed/cursed with the ability to only see things through a positive lens, and this situation was great opportunity for improvised solutions that demanded creative thinking. Our hosts managed to wrangle a pair of acoustic guitars for us, and even found a snare drum that Tristan was able to muffle with a piece of cloth. A small plastic jar containing ½ inch pan-head screws was found in their workshop and pressed into service as a shaker, and we even found a capo which meant that only half of the guitarists in the band would have to play bar chords throughout Jump Rope Gazers. My clarinet was in the van so that came out and found its way onto all four of the songs, lest I sit there without anything to do for most of the session.
As is always the case with sessions in the first half of the day, our voices were still waking up and it was a challenging sing, but we left feeling good about our performances and it was a fun couple of hours.
Something Jon has been working on in the background for the last few days is trying to organise a game of cricket with our friends from the band The National – the cultural exchange we try to have with as many Americans as possible. Sadly, despite the many invitations that were extended their way, none of the seven musicians in that band made it along to the rich green space that is Denver’s City Park where under a warm afternoon sun we found ourselves an empty piece of grass and stood up a cardboard box full of t-shirts as our wickets. They might have made a good decision because it turned out to be one of the more challenging surfaces we have played on, certainly for the beginner cricketer. Instead of bouncing normally when it was bowled the ball would either hit the ground and roll or bounce sharply towards your head. Again, we were bound by our inability to see any situation through anything but a positive lens and although the ball was not struck very often, we persisted until we were too tired to continue.
This scene, a successful hit and fielding of the ball is not what happened most of the time.
Back at the Mission Ballroom we cooled down in our air-conditioned green room and when it was time headed downstairs for soundcheck. It seems to be a luxury these days, having a soundcheck where nothing goes wrong, so we relished getting to spend a full hour tweaking and rehearsing a few things. We ate dinner and then everyone collapsed in the greenroom, exhausted after chewing food at such a high elevation.
I finally got around to changing my bass strings and one of The National’s guitar techs let me use his station.
Denver night two was another great show for us. We are continually surprised by how many people have been showing up to watch the opener on this tour, and it always feels good to walk out and play to a full room. Afterwards we hung around at the merch table for a while, meeting some fans and receiving even more breakfast recommendations which I can only assume are a response to something disappointing I ate last time we came through this city.
Preparing to go on stage.
📷 Michael Goldman
The National looked to be having an excellent time out on the stage last night. I managed to capture the moment during their encore where singer Matt Berninger left his bandmates and spent the majority of a song exploring the audience, continuing to sing, while back on stage the band thundered along with a relentless energy. It was an impressive thing to watch, the coordination of the crew with backline tech Ben belaying what must have been a 200ft cable out over the top of the audience, the other end of the line held and kept taut by the outstretched arm of stage manager Chaz who followed Matt on his journey through the crowd, preventing what could have been a catastrophic tangle. After meandering around the front half of the crowd for a while those two picked up the pace and made it all the way back to the sound desk before Matt decided it was time to return, and Chaz charged back towards the stage clearing a path.
We left as the pack out was in full swing, with road cases and racks of lights getting loaded into the waiting semi-trucks. They would be driving through the night, the first stage in the long journey east to Nashville, and we would follow them in the morning.
Here is the latest video from Tristan covering our time in Denver.